[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 5]
[House]
[Page 6310]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    MINIMIZE THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Fortenberry). Under a previous order of 
the House, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Garrett) is recognized 
for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to, first of 
all, commend the work of a gentleman from whom we will be hearing 
shortly, the gentleman from Utah, for his efforts to come to the floor 
on a regular basis to lead the charge of the Constitutional Caucus to 
return the focus of this House and also the American public on what our 
Founding Fathers intended, and that is the basis of this country, the 
U.S. Constitution; and also to rise to commend the work of a Member 
from Texas who has just previously spoken on his efforts toward that 
goal and his aim on his legislation that he spoke to previously just a 
few moments ago on setting up a Sunset Commission in order to try to 
rein in this ever-growing government that we have today.
  We know this government has been growing over recent years. If we can 
go back to 1925 when then-President Calvin Coolidge said then, when the 
government was as small as it was at that point in time, he said, 
quote, government is growing, quote, to encumber the national 
government beyond its wisdom to comprehend or its ability to reach 
alternatives and to advocate for the people, end quote. Even then in 
1925, Calvin Coolidge realized the government had far exceeded the 
merits the Founding Fathers intended for this country.
  Today we see it as well. Today, of course, we have official reports 
to confirm the same thing. GAO recently came out with a report and 
certified and stated that the GAO cannot certify the government's 
financial records for the last 8 years in a row. They say there are 
weak accounting practices, mismeasurements and mismanagement of assets 
and liability and costs. We see that today.
  Why is this that we see this? Because of certain problems in 
different areas. The size of government has grown tremendously, we have 
cause to understand. There is a sense today that a larger government 
will meet the requirements of the citizens today because one size fits 
all. We know that in practical life that does not ring true, nor does 
it ring true when we have a country today of over 300 million people 
and a government that has tried to meet it with one-size-fits-all 
philosophy.
  We see it also in a sense that a government is not like a business. 
You know, in the private sector, there are certain economies of scale. 
As a business grows bigger, there are economies of scale that makes it 
more efficient. That is not the case with the government. There are no 
such economies of scale.
  Instead, there is a lacking of coordination. There is an overlapping 
of agencies, and, again, what we have to do is look to recent GAO 
reports that just recently came out. This case, in the case of FEMA, 
overlapping of the agencies, of other agencies, mismanagement in the 
agencies, we saw that this agency could not deal with the circumstances 
that came before it.
  Our Founding Fathers understood this. Thomas Jefferson realized that 
as the government grows, he said, quote, the natural process of things 
in government is for liberty to yield and for government to gain 
ground. Government has gained ground in too many specific areas, and 
our liberty has been yielding. Again, I commend the gentleman from 
Texas for his efforts to try to rein in that size of the government.
  I would just make some suggestions as we go forward with that piece 
of legislation. What we need to do, I believe, is make sure that 
legislation has some real teeth to it to be able to get the job done. 
We know that there is already outside organizations that are always 
looking at the Federal Government to see to it whether it is being 
efficient or not.
  We need an agency within the Federal Government that will have teeth, 
be able to get the job done. It needs more than just to analyze it. One 
of the ways we can do that is to have that Sunset Commission have a 
BRAC-like formula to it so that way it will be easier for the proposals 
to come to Congress, just like we did with the BRAC Commission to have 
simply an up-or-down vote on those agencies that are no longer doing 
their job and those agencies are just simply not getting the job done.
  But we have to go a little bit further than that, because we are not 
simply looking at duplication of services and efficiencies. We also 
have to add one additional criteria to that BRAC-like commission for 
the Sunset Commission. That is a very fundamental one, and that is the 
question, are the agencies that this Commission is going to be looking 
at, are the agencies doing something that they have the legal right to 
do? That is to say, do they have the constitutional right to do what 
they are doing right now?
  You know, it is not enough to say that it is efficient. It is not 
enough to say that it is not duplicating services someplace else. It 
has to be legal in what it is doing. When Members of Congress come to 
vote each day on floor, we bring out these little cards, and we put 
them in the little slot here. I think every Member of Congress every 
time he votes should be asking that question: Is it legal, is it 
constitutional? And that is exactly what the Sunset Commission should 
be doing as well.
  I will just conclude on this, Mr. Speaker. A former Member from years 
ago, Barry Goldwater, came to speak once, and he said that when he came 
to Washington, he did not come to Washington to make it more efficient 
or to streamline it. He came to Washington to eliminate it. The 
Founding Fathers had the exact same idea. They did not mean that our 
Federal Government should be simply an inefficient government of 
exceeding abilities of powers, but should be a limited one by our 
Constitution. That is what the Constitutional Caucus is all about. That 
is what the Sunset Commission can do as well. I applaud the Member for 
advocating that and moving along with that legislation.

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